


Let me count the ways

by lumberjackbeards



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Aftermath of memory alteration, Ficlet, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 21:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14703192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumberjackbeards/pseuds/lumberjackbeards
Summary: Taako is determined not to forget.





	Let me count the ways

Taako spends his time cataloguing the things he knows about his sister. It’s the first thing he does every morning, it's the last thing he does at night, recommitting everything he knows to memory.

 _The sound of her breathing next to him in bed, the feeling of her hand in his, her laughter, the spread of freckles across her cheeks, the way she says his name like it’s safe in her mouth._ He never likes his name even half as much as he likes it when she’s the one saying it. _The scar on her arm, the chip in her front left tooth, the sound of her footsteps. Her hands on his face as she fixes his makeup, the brush of her hair against his nape as she drapes herself over him, the assurance of her movements next to him as they make dinner._ He’ll only cook if she’s in the room, now. She’d never let him poison their family, even by accident.

He depends on her; he’s always depended on her, and he’s so fucking scared, because she was taken from him once and he spent ten years in a daze, trying to function through the holes in his head, trying to walk without both his legs, trying to live without his heart, not even knowing what he was missing.

When she leaves his line of sight, he worries. He can’t sleep without her next to him; can’t meditate without her holding his hand. When she leaves for reaper missions, he clutches his stone of farspeech in his hand, and goes over his list in his head.

 _All the names she calls him, how her eyes crinkle when she smiles, the way she presses her face into his neck when she hugs him, her gleeful shout when she successfully cast her first spell._ She had clapped her hands together and hugged him, before twirling him around, spinning him again and again as they laughed; he hadn’t stopped smiling for hours, he had been so unimaginably proud. _The softness of her hair as he braids it, the way her perfume clings to the clothes they share, the softness of the language they created for the two of them, sweeter to him than any other language he spoke, the exact color of fire in her hands._ Fire always made him feel safe, even when he didn’t remember her; it always felt like home and safety, though he didn’t know why.

“I’m not going anywhere- you know that, right?” Lup asks one night.

She’s sitting behind him on the bed carefully braiding his hair as they get ready to go to sleep. Taako can hear Kravitz and Angus having a muffled conversation in the next room, Magnus laughing at something down the hall, and even the sound of Barry doing the dishes if he strains his ears enough. He listens for these things now: the comforting sounds of his family all around him. But still, there’s anxiety ever present in his chest, certain that it’s all going to be ripped away from him again.

“You don’t know that,” Taako says, running his fingertips over his silk pajama pants in a soothing manner. “We didn’t think that you’d get eaten by the Umbra Staff and that I’d forget your very existence. Who _knows_ what fucked up bullshit is down the road.”

“Taako, look at me please,” she says, and once he turns to face her, she takes his hands in hers. “I’m never going to leave you again, I _promise._ If anything tried to separate us again, I’d tear the planer system apart to get back to you. But that’s not going to happen; the apocalypse already came and went and we _won,_ Taako. We fought for and earned our happy ending, and they can’t take it away from us. Things aren’t going to be perfect, but we’ll never be alone again. I’ll always have you and you’ll always have me and we’ll always have these jokers we picked up along the way. It’s time to start letting go of the pain and fear, and that’s hard, but things are going to be so _good,_ Taako. You’ll see.”

Taako squeezed her hand. _The feeling of her hand in yours, the warmth in your chest when she smiles at you,_ his mind supplies. He doesn't believe in happy endings, but he believes in her, so he smiles back all the same.


End file.
